"The greatest defense against a genius is to be so incomprehensibly dumb that their calculations break trying to account for you."
***
Those words weren't a request. They were a command wearing a polite smile, the kind of courtesy that would've been more honest as "sit down and explain yourself before I dissect your soul."
I turned slowly. Nervous confusion. Scared student who got caught napping. My satchel hung from one shoulder while my whole body screamed "please don't fail me, I can't disappoint my father again."
Laurana stood at the center of the empty classroom. Her silver hair caught light from the equations still orbiting her like obedient little planets. Those violet eyes had locked onto me with the intensity of a cat that just spotted something small and squeaky. The last student out the door was Seraphina. Her grey eyes met mine for half a second, and I caught something like worry in them before the door clicked shut.
